crm@rti.UUCP (05/17/84)
The original olympics weren't amateur at all -- the winners got a BIG chunk of money, not to mention that they were glorified in their home town, ensure damn -- ensuring that they got lots of juicy fringes... In fact, the requirement that the athletes be amateur was started by the British/English guy who re-started the Olympics. He wanted to make sure that only the upper-class could compete, unsullied by contact with the working classes who had to work for a living.
citrin@ucbvax.UUCP (05/19/84)
One thing I want to point out concerning crn@rti's article on amateurism: the Olympics were not revived by an Englishman, but by a Frenchman, Baron de Coubertin. Apparently he was an Anglophile who believed that amateur sports, particularly as practiced in British public schools, were the reason for the vitality of British culture and he wished to instill those virtues in French youth. A revived Olympics were the vehicle he decided upon. What were the original reasons for amateur sport? One, of course, was to keep sport the province of the upper class. Supposedly another was a belief that professional athletes were more likely to be in the pay of bookies. Wayne Citrin (ucbvax!citrin)
crm@rti.UUCP (05/22/84)
OK, he was a frenchman. The guy I'm talking about was english... I got this story out of some magazine I read, like TV guide; that'll teach me. Charlie Martin